Sage Advice from the Manuscript Madrina: Teresa Dovalpage Interviews Marcela Landres

Marcela Landres, the Manuscript Madrina, is the author of the e-book How Editors Think: The Real Reason They Rejected You, and is the publisher of Latinidad®, an award-winning e-zine which was chosen as one of the 101 Best Web Sites for Writers by Writer’s Digest. As an editorial consultant, she helps writers get published by editing their work and advising them on how to manage their writing careers. Formerly, Marcela was an editor at Simon & Schuster, a co-founder of The Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference and was on the Advisory Board of Kweli Journal. She has served as a Literature Grant Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and as a judge for the Beyond Margins Award for PEN. Teresa Dovalpage met Marcela Landres twenty years ago at National Hispanic Cultural Center, in Albuquerque, where she was a presenter at a Latino Writers conference. Later, Dovalpage booked a phone consultation and Landres gave her excellent advice before the publication of her first novel. She still has several pages of the notes she took during their conversation, which have served her well for all her other books.

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Dovalpage: Latinidad®, the e-zine you founded in 2003 with the intention of empowering Latino writers, celebrated its twentieth birthday last year. For those who are new to Latinidad®, tell us a little bit about what readers can find in its virtual pages.

Landres:  I’ve lost count of the number of times writers have told me my advice is different from what they’ve heard before. Much of the information on how to get published—via conferences, magazines, books, etc.—comes from writers. But only acquisitions editors determine what gets published. My e-zine offers my perspective from having worked at Simon & Schuster as one of the few Latina editors in the book biz.

Latinidad spotlights practical tips and realistic role models. Today’s aspiring writers contend with a very different literary landscape than established authors who launched their career decades ago. So I feature Q&As with authors who may be just a few steps ahead on their publishing journeys than my readers. Recent examples include Tamika Burgess (author of Sincerely Sicily), Margo Candela (author of The Neapolitan Sisters), and V. Castro (author of Mestiza Blood). Sometimes I interview authors of prescriptive guides that should be in every writer’s personal library, such as After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book by Courtney Maum and The Book Bible: How to Sell Your Manuscript—No Matter What Genre—Without Going Broke or Insane by Susan Shapiro. Always I include opportunities for writers to build their resumes, such as calls for submissions to litmags, contests, and residencies.

Dovalpage: And they are all very helpful. One thing I like about it is that Latinidad has un poco de todo, a little bit of everything. Now, how has the publishing world changed for Latino writers in these 20 years? What are the good news? Are there any bad ones?

Landres: The good news is there are more Latino editors working in-house than ever before. However, most of them work in the children’s division. Children’s publishing appears to be better at recruiting, training, and mentoring Latino editors than their adult counterparts.

To be fair, the characters and storylines tend to be more original and diverse in children’s book than books for adults. These days I am genuinely more eager to read middle grade or young adult novels than adult novels. But unless I’m greatly mistaken, over the course of our lifetimes people tend to read more adult books. So there is a gaping need for more Latino editors on the adult side.

Dovalpage: Let’s cross our dedos that more of them appear…and get the jobs! You said in the most recent Latinidad issue (Winter 2023): “With every success story I imagine an angel in heaven dancing merengue.” I love the image of the merengue dancing angel. Can you share a success story you are particularly proud of?

Seek publication only after you have produced a final draft so polished that all the publisher has to do is slap on a cover and throw it on bookstore shelves.

Marcela Landres

Landres: I’m proud of all the authors with whom I work, but Elba Iris Perez is a recent success story. Her novel The Things We Didn’t Know won Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us First Novel Contest, was published by their Gallery Books imprint in February 2024, and has already hit USA Today’s bestseller list.

Dovalpage: ¡Muchas felicidades para Elba Iris, qué maravilla! You offer a lot of valuable services from full manuscript critique to agent consultations. If I were to ask for a piece of advice that can be useful and applicable to most writers, what would it be?

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Landres: Seek publication only after you have produced a final draft so polished that all the publisher has to do is slap on a cover and throw it on bookstore shelves. Many a submission is rejected not because the writer lacks talent but because the manuscript is a work-in-progress. Agents are salespeople, editors are buyers—not teachers or coaches.

Dovalpage: Excellent advice! You have mentioned several times the importance of networking for writers. Any upcoming conferences or workshops that you would like to recommend?

Landres: Kweli Journal’s The Color of Children’s Literature Conference featuring top editors, agents, authors and illustrators, 4/19-4/21, and VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation), the premier multi-genre workshop for BIPOC Writers, 6/23-6/29, application deadline 3/15.   

Dovalpage: Muchas gracias, Marcela, for this interview and your sabias palabras.

To find out more, visit marcelalandres.com.

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